It's common practice for interest groups to write legislation. In an
interview in tomorrow's Chapel Hill News, state Sen. Richard Stevens, a
Cary Republican, says that's what happened with the provision in state
Senate Bill 1925 authorizing formation of an airport authority in
Orange County.
The bill gives the UNC system Board of Governors
the authority to form a 15-member panel to site, operate and build a
general aviation airport in Orange County. The UNC-CH Board of Trustees
and the UNC Health care System Board of Directors get eight seats.
“The
university approached us and said. ‘Would you also include in this bill
this provision for the airport authority?’ ” Stevens said. "It came
from the [UNC system] president’s office, so it would have been Andy
Willis, vice president for governmental affairs,” Stevens said. “I
think he e-mailed me the draft language they recommended. Our staff
looked at that; they do that all the time. Our staff actually put the
language in bill form.”
Stevens, who co-sponsored the bill,
said he supported it because the university's Area Health Education
Centers need an airport to fly specialist, such as pediatric
cardiologists, to areas of the state that don't have them. In another
interview for that story, AHEC program director Tom Bacon says nearly
60 percent of passengers carried on AHEC planes last year flew in order
to provide clinical care. The rest flew for continuing education, for
official university business (this includes flights by the UNC
chancellor) and for other purposes.
